Bible Strands
Psalms 60:2
You have shaken the land and torn it open. Heal its fractures, for it is quaking.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — David addresses God immediately after detailing a military defeat and divine rejection in the preceding verse. The plea emerges during a national crisis marked by perceived judgment and instability.
The words — The text uses הִרְעַשְׁתָּה (hir'ashtah), meaning "you have shaken," and רְפָה (refah), meaning "repair," to describe divine action and the necessary response. These verbs frame the land’s destruction as something requiring direct intervention.
The thread — The motif of tearing and healing appears in Hosea 6:1, where God’s wounding is paired with His promise to bind up. The pattern of national hardship following divine discipline recurs in the context of Psalms 60:1 and 60:3.
Why it lands — The verse demands acknowledgment that the speaker’s instability originates from divine action and requires divine restoration. It requires the reader to align their request for healing with the reality of the cause.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thou hast made the earth to tremble; thou hast broken it: heal the breaches thereof; for it shaketh.
Cross-references
- 2 Chronicles 7:14 and if My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.
- Isaiah 30:26 The light of the moon will be as bright as the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter—like the light of seven days—on the day that the LORD binds up the brokenness of His people and heals the wounds He has inflicted.
- Hosea 6:1 Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bind up our wounds.
- Psalms 18:7 Then the earth shook and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains trembled; they were shaken because He burned with anger.
- Isaiah 5:25 Therefore the anger of the LORD burns against His people; His hand is raised against them to strike them down. The mountains quake, and the corpses lie like refuse in the streets. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.
- Jeremiah 4:24 I looked at the mountains, and behold, they were quaking; all the hills were swaying.
- Jeremiah 10:10 But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and eternal King. The earth quakes at His wrath, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.
- Jeremiah 48:38 On all the rooftops of Moab and in the public squares, everyone is mourning; for I have shattered Moab like an unwanted jar,” declares the LORD.
- Ezekiel 34:16 I will seek the lost, bring back the strays, bind up the broken, and strengthen the weak; but the sleek and strong I will destroy. I will shepherd them with justice.’
- Job 9:6 He shakes the earth from its place, so that its foundations tremble.